The Harm Reduction Action Center and Colorado AIDS Project said they want to have mobile syringe outreach services, basically outreach workers with backpacks who can carry unused syringes to exchange with addicts. Under current city law, exchanges aren’t allowed in many places in the city because of the 1,000-foot buffer rule.

In fact, said Lisa Raville, executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center, the limitation means exchanges would be allowed only in the middle of the Platte River.

“We don’t want to do exchanges in front of a school,” said Lisa Raville, executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center. “But the 1,000-foot rule is very difficult for us.”

Now, addicts come to the center on Santa Fe Drive from 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday to exchange their old syringes for new ones. Health workers say that is not effective in keeping down the rates of HIV and Hepatitis. A better way is to bring outreach workers to the addicts.

“We know there are 5,000 injectors in Denver,” Raville said. “I am serving 1,300. It’s up to me to get out there and serve the others in town.”

Raville said no other city in Colorado has a buffer for needle exchanges and says that mobile syringe outreach services are considered best practices. In 2008, King County, Wash., spent $1.1 million on syringe exchange[3] programs. IN contrast, lifetime medical costs to treat one person who has HIV is estimated to be $385,200, she said.

To be effective, the groups want to focus on specific hot zones where heroin[4] addicts congregate, Civic Center park, Colfax Avenue and Speer Boulevard, 16th Street Mall and around the Platte River. But some council members fear that could create another bad image for Denver.

“I was particularly concerned with Civic Center,” said Jeanne Robb, councilwoman. “Fortunately, the mayor’s office shared my concern. The mayor has agreed we won’t have mobile syringes in parks or on the sidewalks adjacent to the parks.”